Sheila Jackson Lee says ‘reckless and irresponsible’ NRA ad ‘jeopardized the security of the first family’

Jackson Lee today told Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart an NRA that ad called into question the armed security provided to President Barack Obama’s two daughters was “reckless and irresponsible.” The liberal Democrat, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee and the House Judiciary Committee, went so far as to tell Capehart that the NRA ad “jeopardized the security of the first family.”

The NRA’s online ad ventured into unchartered political water. It was the first time in recent memory that any interest group had used the young children of a president of either party in an attack ad. It was roundly criticized by establishment pundits from both parties.

“Those children, the president’s children and Mrs. Obama, are an extension of the president’s service to this nation,” Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.) told me. “And the idea that you would equate a national security structure that covers a president, no matter who the president is and make either light of it or expose it openly to the people of the United States or to those who this system is [designed] to prevent from doing harm to the president is an outrage.”

The Houston Democrat went on to say that protection of President Obama’s family is a matter of federal law, and to criticize the protection is “bogus.”